I have been using the various versions of Microsoft’s word for years and have even taught a few classes on Microsoft office suite locally. People in general do not use the full capabilities of word, because they simply do not know that they exist. It is my goal within this article to help you turn your version of word into a powerful tool. This tool will help you write your articles quicker and easier.
If you are like 80 percent of adults within this great nation, my self included you did not pay enough attention within your high school grammar classes. Most of us cannot write a sentence without at least one grammatical error. I totally admit that without word I am totally lost when it comes to split infinitives and I could not tell you what a dangling participle is. Most of my problems are because I tend to use a passive voice when writing.
If you set up your copy of word to point out all these grammar errors you will spend at lot less time guessing if you have errors or not. There is even a help feature you can invoke at the touch of a button that will explain errors to you if need be. Trust me it is easy and I use that feature often.
Go ahead and open your copy of Microsoft word and look on the top tool bar and you will see the word tools. Under tools, there is a drop down list and from there you will need to select options. Once you click options, a little box will appear on your screen with various tabs.
We will select the spelling and grammar tab. The top part will contain spelling options and it is just easier to tell you what not to check. Most of these options will be checked so go ahead and check all but hide spelling errors and suggest from main dictionary. You want the spelling errors to be shown and sometimes you have words such as slang, which is not in the main directory.
Under the grammar section, you will want to have everything checked but the one, which says to hide the grammatical errors. You will need to see those in order to fix them. There should be a drop down box there as well, you will need to make sure the option that says grammar, and style is showing in that box.
Under that drop down box, you will see settings click on that. There are a few things under require. For the option of commas after a last list item, select always. For the option of punctuation before or after quotes, you will need to select outside. For the option regarding the spaces at the end of the sentence, select the number 2. For the rest of the little check boxes on that tab I check all of them but use of the first person. Click okay to get out of those options and return to word.
Now just go ahead and type your article as you usually do. Any spelling errors will now have a red wavy line under them alerting you to the fact that you have made a typo. You may notice a green wavy line under some words or punctuation and this tells you that you have made a grammatical error that needs fixing.
When you see the red or green line under a word or punctuation right click on it and a drop down list will appear and show the error or correct spelling. If it is a spelling error just select the correct spelling and highlight it and it will change within your article.
You can correct your errors as you write the article or you can correct them when you are finished writing. I correct as I go but when I am finished I also use the spelling and grammar checker under tools in that top tool bar.
This allows me to invoke the help feature if I feel I need it.
I have noticed more of my articles get better offers if I use these settings within word. I also look smarter and that is always a good thing. Another benefit of this is I am actually learning the rules of grammar that I should have learned many years ago but choose not pay attention to. I think Mrs. Ronsvalle would be happy to know that I am finally learning them.
